Busy busy!

My God, my feet have hardly touched the ground this last week or so! From where I left off with my last post I've been preparing like crazy for the job interview, to the point where on Monday night I put my bits and pieces back in my interview bag and said to Rob "I've done enough". I knew that I was so hideously over-prepared that if I didn't get the job then it certainly wasn't because I didn't know what I was talking about. I was happy with everything that I'd done and when I got into the boardroom for my interview my preconceptions were correct, that the interview was pretty much nothing more than a formality and they offered me the job on the spot.

The surprising thing was that they'd come in and offered me the top figure that I'd asked for in the bracket as my basic salary. When I was talking to them initially they asked me what I was looking for and I gave them a figure that I would be looking for had it been a local job, but had to call them back a couple of days later and tell them that with the extra travelling it'd put a fair amount on top of my childcare when you calculated it annually, and lo and behold they accepted. I know that I could have probably got about another 3 grand as that's the going rate in London, but having no product knowledge was a serious hindrance and I know I'll be in a much better position to get a more substantial payrise further down the line.

So the last few days have been spent ironing out the contract, going out and getting clothes and stuff for work, arranging childcare and making sure Jake and I are ready and prepared for next week.

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Saturday however I took a day out of job stuff and with Jake at Nanny and Grandad's we went to see our friends Ben and Heather in Lewisham and about 20 or so of us piled on down to Blackheath to watch their annual firework display and then go back for soup, of which I brought over some of my home made Cream of Potato and Sweetcorn *lickslips*

Jake came back Sunday evening and after initially being really freaked out by all the fireworks banging and popping we turned all the downstairs lights off and stood with him at the lounge window and he watched "all the pretty magic stars" from the safety and comfort of the lounge. We even put a few spare sparklers in the ground and let him watch them burn and we sang "twinkle twinkle little star" as they were sparkling away. We caught his wonderment on videocamera as he just sounded sooooo cute with all his "oooow's" and "ahhhhh's" and the banging on the window when he saw something. Can't wait to take him out next year, when hopefully he'll be a little less frightened of the noise.

Anyhoo, my job starts on Wednesday 15th and Rob's got a training course in London all day which'll mean we can get the train in and home together on my first day.